Overview

Vodafone now operates in over 30 countries and has network partnerships in another 50, serving over 400 million customers around the world. Supporting and growing its global customer base in an intensely competitive and fast changing environment depends heavily on Vodafone’s ability to source the right technology and services.

Already recognised as a leader in sourcing and procurement, Vodafone’s senior management understood that to respond to both external market changes and internal developments, centralisation to a central platform would become increasingly important. Creating a more agile, responsive and efficient procurement function, with greater automation, would allow Vodafone’s supply chain professionals to focus on strategic planning and value-adding activities and enable Vodafone to achieve recognition as the world’s leading supply chain organisation.

THE APPROACH

Opportunity

Already recognised as a leader in sourcing and procurement, Vodafone’s senior management
understood that to respond to both external market changes and internal developments,
centralisation to a central platform would become increasingly important.

Creating a more agile, responsive and efficient procurement function, with greater automation,
would allow Vodafone’s supply chain professionals to focus on strategic planning and value-adding
activities and enable Vodafone to achieve recognition as the world’s leading supply chain
organisation.

Solution

Accenture worked closely with Vodafone’s global
supply chain organisation, OneSCM, to envision,
design and deliver technology and business
transformation initiatives to enable adoption of
end-to-end online sourcing activities on a single
technology platform.

Accenture worked with Vodafone to identify
specific areas for improvement and the initiatives
to address them. These were aligned with the
key executive imperatives that the new
organisation and its capabilities would need to
deliver.

The principal functional areas implemented in
the new system addressed Category
Management, Saving Methodology, eSourcing
and Contract Management. Embedding the tools

The principal functional areas implemented in
the new system addressed Category
Management, Saving Methodology, eSourcing
and Contract Management. Embedding the tools and capabilities for sourcing projects into the
system enabled a shift from what had been
more ad-hoc execution of RFP production and
management, to a highly visible and centrally
managed process. This brought savings tracking
visibly into the system with contracting and
associated activities also now residing directly
within the SAP system.

and capabilities for sourcing projects into the
system enabled a shift from what had been
more ad-hoc execution of RFP production and
management, to a highly visible and centrally
managed process. This brought savings tracking
visibly into the system with contracting and
associated activities also now residing directly
within the SAP system.

Accenture ran extensive change management
activities to drive user adoption and secure
senior executive buy in. Accenture trained the
entire supply chain organisation in a totally new
toolset that for the first time made the whole
sourcing governance process available online.
Accenture also created focus groups and
working groups to establish how the governance
would work in practice.

Results

Creating a single Category Management system
and driving adoption through a concerted
change management programme has delivered
broad benefits. System users now have a single,
streamlined online tool that, among other
advantages, helps them respond faster, work
with greater agility and collaborate more
effectively with suppliers and other stakeholders.

Key performance metrics have all hit or
exceeded the targets set for them:

• Spend on contract has more than doubled
from 30 percent to 65 percent.

• The use of eSourcing has more than tripled
since the system went live.

• Sourcing cycle times have also decreased
substantially.

• The use of project management to support
sourcing activities has grown from less than
15 percent of projects in the past to more than
three- quarters.

What's Next?

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